What gearbox do I have? 2011 E200CDI Sport Blueefficiency

[jumpinjohnson]

Hi everyone, just wondering whether anyone can help me out on this?

I've just bought a 2011 E200CDI Sport Blueefficiency Auto... it has a conventional auto box and also paddles on the column. I don't have the car yet - don't pick it up until Friday - but I'm wondering how many gears the box has? There seem to be vastly different opinions out there on so-called 'car specification' sites. They range from 5 gears to 6 and even 7.

Any ideas?!

Cheers :-)

Ian.

[GreenMan]

If there's a "conventional" automatic gear lever between the seats then it's the 5-speed 'box... the 7-speed shifter (7g-tronic plus) is located on the right-hand-side of the steering column.

Opinions are divided over which is best - the older 5-speeder is often cited as more reliable, but the 7-speed is significantly more economical.

[jumpinjohnson]

Thanks for that - that answers my question perfectly. I've got a conventional gear shifter rather than a column shift so it must be the 5-speed.

If I'm honest I'm pretty happy about that. The reason I've bought this car is because the 7-speed auto box on my '07 A6 imploded - a common fault apparently with that gearbox but it's put me off buying second hand, out of warranty high-tech 'boxes for a while.

I can totally see why the 7 speed would be more economical and possibly smoother too (that said, my A6 had a CVT box so you could barely feel the changes) but I'd sacrifice all of that for a few years of reliability :-)

Do you know of any reliability issues with these cars? Anything I should watch out for over and above the gearbox?

Cheers!

[GreenMan]

I'm no expert but I think these tend to be pretty reliable. There was a batch of duff injectors that caused problems for the 4-cylinder diesels when the w212 generation was first launched - however these should have been sorted by now and I think the 200cdi may have been exempt from the problem anyway (it affected the 220 and 250 versions but IIRC the 200 uses different injectors)...

[jumpinjohnson]

That's great, thanks for that. Yeah, I read up about the injector issue but that seems to have been resolved for the end of 2010, before my car was built. Injectors are another problem I cam across with a VAG car (Passat 2.0TDi) so they were something I was concerned about.

My main concern with the car prior to test driving it was the lack of power that's being raved about online. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It's not going to set anyone's pants on fire but it's much more spritely than the equivalent 140bhp A6, more torquey too.